Students attending Santa Monica College, located just outside of Los Angeles, are now able earn a certificate in cloud computing. The classes incorporate content provided from Amazon Web Services Inc. and AWS Educate, Amazon’s global cloud-related learning initiative.

To receive a certificate, courses cover 15 units of programming, security and database management, as well as other areas of cloud. This certificate program is such a success that it is now being used as a model that’s being rolled out to 19 other L.A.-area community colleges and their partner high schools.

“It’s become much bigger than just one particular college,” said Howard Stahl (pictured, right), professor of computer science at Santa Monica College in California. “We’re working on building an AA degree in cloud computing as well.”

As one of the hottest areas in technology, learning cloud computing is seen as a way for today’s students to earn a relevant certificate that will serve them well in the technological world.

Stahl, along with Koda Kol (pictured, left), a teacher at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles and a computer science instructor at Santa Monica College, spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Imagine: A Better World event in Seattle, Washington. In addition to discussing how AWS helps with the cloud computing certificate program, they also talked about why the students are so engaged and enthusiastic.

Immediate student engagement

One thing Kol has noticed is that all students who study the cloud are on the same page. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the traditionally high-performing students or the students who are used to failing classes; cloud computing interests all of them. They are used to finding and ordering products from Amazon, and as they learn about cloud, they can apply what they know, so it’s relevant to their lives, he explained.

Almost immediately, students can spin up web and file servers, create websites, and even set up virtual private networks. This type of hands-on learning is very appealing to the kids, Kol pointed out. “We open one section up, and it gets filled. The students are in class; they want to learn the material. It’s a good time to be in education,” he stated.

The partnership with AWS really makes a difference, providing professional development and continuous learning for faculty, as well as providing newly minted certificate earners with connections to local businesses that are seeking cloud expertise, Stahl concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Imagine: A Better World event.

 Photo: SiliconANGLE